Our last moment together, in my car in the parking lot of The UPS Store. It was bittersweet.
Dear IPC Case #3742 , formerly known as Northeast District Case #3169:
Today, we parted ways. With a swipe of my business check card for a slightly-over-$24 charge, I was rid of you. And your ilk.
I don’t really know what “ilk” is, but it sounds serious. And menacing. And stuff.
Today was the final goodbye. We learned in late March that indeed, collectively, you four would be leaving me. You had formed a bond, shortly after the Ohio state level competition… where at first there were 6 of you, but scoring and critique kicked two of you to the curb. And then there were four. Like Genesis. Only not.
I look back and I see the development of the group…
I knew that Dwight’s image would be included. The session we did exhibited so many spectacular images – I narrowed the selection down to two. An environmental portrait and a head shot. The environmental portrait went through competition and merited last year. The head shot scored a 90, 82, & 84 in previous competitions this past year and was the top score at one competition. And it all began as a quest to recreate an amateur candid I’d taken 10 years before.
Without question, Bryon’s image would be included. He and I had 5 or 6 sessions throughout the year. He and the camera are having some sort of illicit affair that I’ve not been able to identify, but I foresee many merit images in the future with him as a model. I do wonder if that’s fair… The image I chose from his sessions scored so well that I brought home a trophy. A really big one. I want to win it, again.
My muse, the most beautiful man I know, Alex. Alex, of course, Alex. I would be a fool not to include an image of Alex. He is strength and beauty and his intenseness… I need to shoot Alex some more…he responded immediately to a need for a model and helped me re-shoot a concept we’d done a few years ago that didn’t quite mesh. This time it did. And how. It won an award, complete with engraved plaque on the wall as well as the highest scoring entry of my case at Northeast District.
And my oldest son. This is this first time that I’ve included a child of mine in competition. As I love him, I love the image. It is me, stylistically, and it is him, with cheek. It scored an 80 and an 82 in previous competitions.
Four men. Four seals. For solid merits.
For awhile, I had tried to include a woman in the mesh.
Michelle, another muse, has sat for me several times and renders characters that I love and wish to develop, but somewhere in the translation, things seem to fall apart. I do that crazy thing and look at it and say “it’s just not a merit image.”
I can’t explain what that means, but I think those of you who have also said it, understand what I’m saying.
I believe I need to purposely look into why most of my merit images are of men. I need to work with women more. This case has taught me that.
This case has taught me many lessons. Lessons that I’m still learning. Still thinking about. Lessons so embarrassing, that I’m not sure I’ll share them. Lessons that I have yet to learn, I’m sure.
*IPC Judges should not view the video links within this article, of course. 🙂
Yesterday was the “early” deadline for the 2013 International Photographic Competition. Within the hour, I will be on my way to the UPS store with my case, so that it arrives by July 5th in Atlanta, Georgia.
My 2013 case consists of four images that sealed at the 2013 PPA Northeast District Photographic Competition. All four scored above an 80, so they automatically qualify for a merit when they are forwarded to IPC 2013. They will skip through the merit judging and go straight to the load judging. My case consists of one print and three digital images.
I believe that the greatest learning about print competition comes from viewing judging. A close runner-up would be to have your image critiqued by an affiliated judge. Through the magic and wonder of modern technology, I am able to share my 2013 Northeast Districts entries with you, which combine both. I hope they will be helpful in some manner.
If any Wootness fans out there would like to share theirs as well, and will grant Wootness the right to post them in a critique library for reference purposes, please email me: christine@wootness.net and give your email the subject PPA Critique.
One of the barriers to print competition is expense. By the time you pay for printing, mounting, laminating, matting, etc, you’ve got quite a wad of cash invested. The last time I ordered a straight 16×20 mounted laminated print, it was in the region of $50. And that’s cheap. Times that by 4 images in your case and that’s $200. Inside, I’m chuckling, though, and I’m sure some of you are, too. Rarely do all 4 of my prints satisfy me on the first run-through. The first time I competed, I ran through 11 prints to get to my final 4. So, my costs for that competition were quite high.
By the time you’re ready to ship your prints, you’ve got at least $200 dollars invested in prints. And then there’s that “approved shipping case” that’s at least another hundred, and the $90 entry fee and the rush overnight UPS shipping, because a lot of … ahem … us… wait until pretty close to the deadline to send those babies off … well, let’s just say that each step in competition can be quite costly.
So, with competition opportunities as limited and as expensive as they are, it’s rare to come across a decent competition like the one I’m about to clue you in on.
Photo Pro Network (also known as the Kentucky Professional Photographers Association, Inc.) has an annual membership fee of $49. They have several image competitions per year. One is called the Hot Shots Summer Image Competition, which is coming up shortly.
The Hot Shots competition allows 10 digital entries with an entry fee of $5 per image. Each image is not only judged, but they are critiqued and BONUS of BONUSES (BONUSI?) the image competition/critique is broadcast live for FREE on the internet. Yeah, you don’t gotta drive NOwhere.
And the other bonus is this. You don’t have to be a member to enter and have your image judged and critiqued. You won’t be eligible for prizes and awards, though.
I’d like ya’ll to go ahead and join, though. I think these people are running this all crazy-like. $5 entry fee! You’d think you’d get what you pay for, but you know what? In this case, you get a LOAD more than you pay for.
The judges they get are pretty decent. I don’t know who is on the judging panel for the upcoming Hot Shots competition, but Jessica Vogel, an affiliated PPA judge will be there as a speaker on print competition, so I’m going to make a wild guess that she’s judging, as well. Jessica judged the 2013 PP of Ohio competition, where I was assistant print chair and was I able to observe her judging style throughout the day. I was impressed & am fully confident that the rest of the judges chosen by PPN will be as qualified as Jessica.
Since I’m not into recommending things I haven’t done myself, rest assured that I have entered print competitions through the PPN before. I used their system in both 2011 and 2012 to weed down some images for competition later on in my home state. In December of 2011, I entered six images that I was considering for the 2012 Northeast District. Since my home state of Ohio was hosting the 2012 District competition, I wouldn’t have the additional opportunity of submitting 6 images to Ohio for our state competition that year. I love that we host the District competitions so often, but I don’t like the loss in competition opportunity. So, the PPN fills that gap in the pre-IPC flowchart. 😉
Through this additional opportunity, I was able to get some input on several images that I was unsure of. I ditched the ones that scored below an 80 and moved forward with the ones that did.
The only criticism I can make of the PPN competitions is that they have yet to change their requirements over to match the dimension requirements of higher level PPA competitions. For digital entries, the PPA standard is 4000 pixels on the longest side, but for PPN, the measurement is currently 3000. I’m hoping they’ll make that change some time in the future. It’s not a major big deal, but it’s another set of specs to keep track of in an already confusing rule-laden process.
So, all you folks out there that are serious about competing; the deadline is July 11 at midnight. The fee is $5 per entry. Get off your arse and do this! Quick, before the people in charge raise the entry fee.
Here are the important links you need for now, come back later and I’ll tell you all about the incredible LIVE competition broadcasts, you’re gonna squeal! (oh yes, yes you are.)
Entry deadline: Thursday, July 11, 2013 Midnight EST
Juding/Critiques LIVE: Sunday, July 14, 2013 4:15 PM EST
*As always, this is an unpaid, unsolicited review. Christine is a member of PPN, but since she has been a member for less than one hour, no bribing incidents have had time to occur.
I’ve been doing a lot of research into projects that can be made with photographs. It seems that this is the day and age of the do-it-yourself-crafter and why not help our clients along in their decorating endeavors by suggesting projects they could make out of photographs from our sessions? Good idea, eh?
Well, that remains to be seen, it’s something I’m still working on, but I definitely have a new hobby of finding outrageously… mmmm…. different tastes and skill levels out there on some of these projects. I”m actually starting to feel sorry for some of my Pinterest followers as I’m sure they have no clue why I’m pinning some of the outrageous stuff that I am.
So, for my first commentary:
OK, so does anyone know what’s going on with this? It looks like a green glass dish or vase of some sort, hot glued to an ashtray, with a set of silverware dangling down, accented with some beads with a photo of a couple in the center.
Let’s make this short and sweet. Do not make this project for anyone as a gift. They will whisper about you behind your back later.
Now, this is a photograph for sale:
Please don’t get me this gift, it is driving my OCD crazy that there is no yellow brush in the cup.
I also like to look up gallery wall examples, but I’m thinking this person needs to make friends with a level:
AND clean his sensor.
On the PLUS side, I found this incredible photo illustrating an organizational article:
Seriously, anyone who uses a photo with coffee and a plate of brownies in it has it going on. I have no idea what that has to do with office organization, maybe the person is so organized now that they have time to whip up home-made brownies, who knows?
Well, that’s it for today. If you’d like to keep abreast of what I might be snarking on next, follow this board:
Not sure if ur willing to give me any tips but any suggestions would be great im gonna do some photography on the side to make some extra money and a better camera just starting this up im having trouble deciding prices on pics if u could give me some ideas that would be great Its something I love to do
Dear Emmy Lou,
May I call you Emmy Lou? I don’t know your name since one wasn’t provided to me, so I’ll just call you Emmy Lou. That’s my cat’s name, but she won’t mind.
So, Emmy Lou, I think you need advice. And the advice I’m going to give you is not the advice you want to receive. But, it’s going to be the most honest advice you’re gonna get.
My advice to you is to forget it. Do not pursue photography as a career, even if it’s part time, on the side or on weekends.
If you want to take lots of pics with your camera and pursue photography as a hobby, that’s wonderful. Go for it and have a great time.
But honestly, Emmy, I don’t think you have what it takes to make money the right way from photography. And I’m certainly not going to encourage you to do it any way but the right way.
First of all, you wrote a professional photographer a letter using bad English, grammar, punctuation and spelling. This alone tells me that you probably weren’t a very good student and your writing and communication skills are probably not very good. It’s okay if you’re not perfect, but when you’re a photographer, you have to know how to write things very well. You have to communicate with your clients in emails and in advertisements, contracts, invoices and anything you post on the web. You can’t do that in the manner you used above.
Being a photographer isn’t just about taking pictures. You have to be a good student at a LOT of different things.
Seriously, there is no way to make money at this business unless you’re good at a lot of other things besides photography. You need to be able to set up a web site and write all of the content. You have to learn how to handle accounting stuff that will drive you crazy. You’ll have to keep track of every penny you spend and every mile you drive in your car. You’ll have to juggle your family schedule around your photography jobs and trust me, you will be working long after the rest of your family has gone to bed. You will have to be scheduler, accountant, driver, web master, advertising rep, marketing person and retoucher. You will have to pay for, and then learn some of the most expensive and difficult software I’ve ever come across. You will have to file legal documents, buy insurance and pay taxes.
Being a photographer is expensive and it takes up a lot of time. Before you go into business you will have to study and practice a lot. You will have to go to classes, and those aren’t cheap. I know there’s stuff on the internet, free webinars & stuff like that. Do not be fooled! You cannot learn to become a great photographer from the internet. Honest. And these days, even the greatest photographers are having trouble making ends meet.
Before you go in business, you will need to spend a lot of money. Don’t be tempted to do photography for people until you have the right equipment. You’ve already admitted you need a better camera, why in the world would you be wanting to set prices on pics at this point? What you need depends on what you are trying to do, but rest assured, you will have to spend thousands and thousands of dollars before you even start worrying about prices.
Before you go into business you will have to be a VERY GOOD photographer. Please don’t be fooled by your friends and family who will tell you very nice things about your photography. Of course they will say nice things. They love you. But for the most part, folks do not have natural talent and it must be developed and honed with lots of work. Please don’t think you’re the exception to the rule. If you were, you would have known it by now, and would have been plucked from mediocrity and placed into the public eye by someone greater than yourself.
Also, don’t be thrilled with the compliments you receive on your photographs of flowers and sunsets. As someone told me recently “Mother Nature’s parents don’t pay very well.” A love of nature photography does not necessarily translate well to earning a living. It also doesn’t mean you’ll be able to take good photographs of people, and people are what you need to know how to photograph well. They are more likely to be your clients than the rare calendar company who buys 12 nice nature photographs a year, you know?
And don’t be fooled by photographers who travel around and tell you how wonderful it is to be a photographer. They have lots of city tours and sell CDs and have a huge fan page on Facebook, right? Stop and think for a minute. If photography is such a great career for them, why are they traveling around like this and selling stuff?
You may have heard the advice to put your best foot forward. I’m sorry, Emmy Lou, but you did not put your best foot forward, and what little you did put forth was not enough to convince me that you are serious enough about photography to give it the time and attention it needs and deserves to become an income source for you.
That was pretty harsh, huh? I’m sorry about that. I just don’t know how else to say it in a manner that isn’t going to give you false hope.
The truth of it is, photography looks really easy, but it isn’t. It’s hard and expensive and unless you are the very best photographer you can be and constantly work hard, you won’t have much of a chance of being successful.
You go right ahead and try to prove me wrong, but I’m going to predict that if you decide to go ahead and go into business, you will start taking photos for money before you’re ready and you’ll sell them for somewhere in the $35-$50 range. You won’t get a business license or pay taxes. You’ll most likely get some clients, it seems like all folks in your situation do, but in the end, after working too hard for too little, you will understand why I’m saying what I am.
So, save yourself a lot of time, money, heartache and headache. Keep it as a hobby. Period. Don’t take money. Ever.
 Christine’s Final Thoughts:
At first, I thought this letter was a joke. And I laughed. And then I got pissed. And then I was just sad.
I think these days we need to be a lot more honest with some of the new folks out there. This is a freaking hard industry to earn a living from. And the waves of folks pinning their hopes on photography as the easy road to fame and riches with minimal effort has got to stop. Stop blowing smoke up people’s asses and start telling the truth. There’s not really a tactful, PC way of telling this truth. That’s not permission to be mean, it’s permission to be honest, with care. Most of the time, you’re probably going to be right, but if you inspire someone to prove you wrong, how bad is that really gonna be?
Bob & Melinda’s “first look” arranged mere minutes before the ceremony…
Oh, joy of joys, it’s wedding season. Or at least it is where I live.
This will be the 7th year I’ve photographed weddings. I hear that’s a little longer than most, so I guess I’ve beat the odds. Somewhat.
I’ve wrestled with whether or not to keep weddings on my menu and I hear a lot of you are dealing with the same issue.
I enjoy weddings, I love them! Weddings are happy and everyone’s dressed up and pretty and in a good mood. There’s even free food if I play my cards right.
BUT…
I’m a one-woman show and an all day 12+ hour wedding is something that is very difficult for me. Oh, I can do it, no problem, but for two days afterwards, I just wanna lay down and die. It’s like running a marathon. Well, I’ve never run a marathon, but I bet those people wanna lay down and die, too.
I do have Mr. Wootness, who comes along to haul gear, and has 2nd shot from balconies during church ceremonies, but for the most part, I like to retain creative control over the images and don’t plan on hiring other photographers to shoot with/for me. The burden is all mine, so to speak. So, large and long weddings have become an issue for me.
Last year I made the decision to eliminate weddings. Within a week I had two calls from brides that were having very small weddings and only required a short length of shooting time.
Now, normally, this is the kind of potential client that wedding photographers tend to loath hearing from. For us, a wedding is a wedding is a wedding. I can only book one wedding per day. Some brides just don’t seem to “get” that and don’t understand that their “we’re just having a small wedding, ” or “we only need a few pics” or “we only need to hire you for an hour” negotiation attempts are insulting and impossible.
Brides, perk up your ears here: Please don’t ask us to book an entire day that we have already valued at being worth XX number of dollars for anything less than XX number of dollars. Yes, we may only have to work an hour or two or three for you, but we can’t use what’s left of the rest of the day to book any other wedding and recoup any income we have lost through negotiating with you. If we don’t have a “My Wedding’s So Small I’m Not Even Having a Cake!” package, don’t ask for one. M,kay?
So, anyway…
I had two brides with a need for photography for a length of time that wouldn’t actually render me useless the next day. What had before been impossible, now looked to be very possible. As an experiment, I booked both weddings to see how things went. Each bride received “up to 3 hours of wedding coverage” that included one hour of portraits with the bride and groom before-hand, the ceremony, and one hour of family portraits/formals etc afterwards.
Easy, peasy. One was a formal church ceremony and the other was held at a local vineyard. Both were lovely days, lovely brides, and the work load was reduced as well as the price.
This worked for me. It worked QUITE WELL.
For me.
Now bear in mind that I am not primarily a wedding photographer. The bulk of my income is from studio photography. I do not book every weekend with weddings, in fact, I limit them to twice per month. My studio is closed on the weekends and I prefer to have as much of those to myself as possible.
Instead of working for weddings, I have made weddings work for me.
I did a time study of those two weddings and figured a total of 15-20 hours of work for each one, so I must bear that in mind while formulating my packages and pricing, but overall, I think I’ve come up with a way that I can provide a niche photography service at a price point that makes both the bride and I happy. Yes, my prices may be as low as some of the newer photographers in town, but brides that would normally hire them, balk at the fact that I will not photograph their reception or work for longer than 3 hours, so I’m not attracting that market.
So here’s my point: If you’re thinking about ditching weddings for whatever reason, think of a way that you can still do them, but with eliminating the reason you find them objectionable. If you do it well, don’t quit, just modify your methods.
This, in the Quality* world, is called a “Root Cause Analysis.” You dig and dig and dig until you find THE EXACT thing that is causing the issues, and then you correct it, so that you eliminate the problem that has been occurring.
For example (simplified for you non-geeks):
Problem: Weddings physically drain me.
Root cause: Length of weddings. Events lasting 6 hours or less are much less likely to cause physical recovery issues.
Solution: Reduce wedding coverage to 6 hours or less.
BAM!
*Christine worked for twelve years as a quality specialist for an ISO 9000 certified manufacturing facility. She was a Certified Quality Auditor through the American Society for Quality, and still holds the Certified Quality Improvement Associate certification.
In the beginning, Wootness was a fun way to poke fun at myself and cause laughter among other photographers who could relate and hopefully, to educate some newer photographers that were in the middle of making the same mistakes.
After 2.5 years of writing over 250 articles and almost 200 cartoons, I find myself at an impasse.
As time goes on, and the newbies keep coming and making the same damn mistakes over and over again…. it has all ceased being funny. I just can’t find the humor any more. At least not today.
There are plenty of websites out there that blatantly make fun of newbies, some going so far as to use specific images from specific photographers to poke fun at. And most of the times, it’s not in fun, there’s just downright mean and nasty attitudes and comments bandied about. And horror of horrors, these websites are actually popular. Whoda thunk ?
I’m a numbers kind of gal and I keep a pretty close eye on the stats for this site. And what I’ve found is that the most popular of my articles are the ones that contain cuss words in the title or are bitch vents. And at times I’ve specifically used these techniques to pump up the views and clicks. But you know what? I’m tired of it. Sometimes I want to write from the heart and say something meaningful, and those posts sometimes only have clicks in the single digits. That’s disheartening… to realize that you’re only going to get read if you’re bitching about something…
I’m tired of the bitching, whining and moaning about the newbies. I too, am tired of the constant influx of poor work into the market place, but the answer is not to form a photography posse and hunt down the newbies, publicly shaming them. Yeah, they should be ashamed at putting that kind of work out there, but I don’t think it behooves any of us to be part of drama. I’m tired of the photography hordes that just seem to be waiting for someone to start the latest bitch fest so they can jump in with both feet. It’s not funny and it brings no one joy… where’s the Wootness in that?
There’s some crap going on out there that disappoints me, greatly. Through my involvement in print competition I’ve met many photographers whose work I admire, highly. And for along time, I admired them highly, too. But over the years, I’ve observed some behaviors and heard some words from those I admire that didn’t reflect very well on them.
When a photographer is honored, with either an excellent score, a ribbon or an award, they’ve earned it. Under the rules in effect and the discernment of the judges, it is rightfully theirs. Let them cherish it and be proud of it, just as you would.
This isn’t the time to mutter comments about “luck” or “paid re-touchers.” It’s not the time to insult the intelligence of the jurors. It’s not the time to accept your 2nd or 3rd place trophy with anything less than a smile.
Image Competition helps raise the bar in photography and you should be proud that your peers and colleagues are part of that process.
There’s a few photographers out there with chips on their shoulders, a few that don’t deal well with some of their local competition and a few that just can’t handle not winning all of the time.
Stop it, just stop it now. Deal with whatever your own personal angst is, but don’t vent it against your fellow competitors.
I recently learned that a competitor I know received an anonymous email from someone trying to undermine the joy and importance of an award that the competitor received.
Seriously? This is what we’ve become? A bunch of 6th graders pushing each other around on the playground and slipping unsigned notes through locker vents?
I’m ashamed. And angry. One sour grapes-filled photographer made all the rest of us look bad.
 I apologized to the competitor and I can only hope that this incident doesn’t prevent further competition participation.
Cut the spoiled-rotten crap out. We’re supposed to be grown-ups. Professional ones. Act like it.
If you compete in PPA photographic competitions on a district level, and if your image scores an 80 or above, it earns a “Seal of Approval.”
Oooohhh, seal of approval, that sounds so fancy.
I have to admit, when I started in print competition, I couldn’t wait to get a peek at one of those seals of approval. I was sorely disappointed in the fact that it was just a sticker. Here, have a look:
2013 Northeast District Seal of Approval
I do have to stay that things started looking a bit more impressive on the front of the image, as each image that scores above an 80 also gets a gold corner applied to it for the image exhibit:
2013 Northeast District Gold Corner
So, what exactly does this mean?
It means, that when you send your sealed image into the very next International Photographic Competition, that the seal will automatically convert to a merit for that image and it will not have to be re-judged for inclusion into the general collection. It will still go through the Loan Collection judging, but you are guaranteed it will be included in the general collection and will receive a merit.
You can’t wait a year and send it in next year, you have to send it in this year, or the seal is no longer valid.
So, in the grand scheme of things, what is next?
Well, if you got 4 seals at your district competition, you’re good to go. Register for IPC and forward those images on. Last year, the registration process had all your information already in place and even had notifications if an image had sealed. Just register, pay and complete your entry and wait for August. Ha ha!
If you didn’t get all 4 seals, you can still choose to forward the entries that didn’t seal or you can replace them with new images that you think would have a better chance of meriting at IPC than the ones you sent to District.
Most people I talk to have a case of combined sealed and non-sealed images, so almost everyone I know is preparing an alternate image or two. Or three.
Now, in some circumstances, even if you sealed an image, you may elect to “break the seal” and substitute another image, instead. We’ll talk about that in an upcoming article as that is something I am contemplating doing myself.
The main thing to remember is that a seal of approval may only be earned at a district level competition. Some folks will say they got a merit – but that’s just a common misuse of the term and what they really mean (or should mean) is that they got a seal. So, all of you seal-earners out there – prep your case and send it on, registration is open for IPC!
A light meter. If you had to look down here to see what this was, we need to talk.
#15 in the series, 30 Ways of Wootness.
Sometimes you just gotta say “eh, screw this!” and take your attention and energy to something else. You’re gonna try some stuff that you wish you hadn’t. Some stuff is gonna seem like the best idea, ever. Until you do it.
You might get a brilliant idea for a 30 series column and stay excited until the daily readership dips to 5 before you’re willing to hang it up and cancel the series. Hey, networks do it all the time, right? You might have another brilliant idea for a mini-session that turns out to be way more work and higher COGs than your normal session. Oops, time to revamp the pricing on that. Over time we make decisions or begin projects that turn out to not be the stellar idea we originally thought.
You know what? It’s no big deal. We focus that energy elsewhere, somewhere that’s going to give us a better return on our investment.
Is there a dead horse out there that you’ve been beating? How many years have you donated your services somewhere in the expectation that the gig would eventually pay off? If it hasn’t, time to get rid of it and explore a new option. Is there a type of photography that you really dislike, but still accept appointments for? Stop it now!
Stop wasting non-productive energy. Make room for positive change. Quit the stuff that needs quitting.
![IMG_3574[1]](http://www.wootness.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/IMG_35741.jpg)
